Issue #27: 30 Years as a Day Laborer in China + Three Chinese Photographers’ Overseas Trips in 2023
Hi everyone,
2023 was a year of “revenge mobility” for many who lived through China’s era of “static management”. As border restrictions and strict quarantine requirements were lifted, many traveled abroad for the first time in three years. Hashtags such as #Citywalk and #SpecialForcesTourism took over social media. In this issue, we examine how China’s relationship with the world has changed, through the eyes of three Chinese photographers.
As China’s economic slowdown becomes more evident, Beijing is courting international business and tourists by loosening entry requirements, and signaling “openness” by, for instance, sending a big delegation to Davos. These seemingly positive signs of transparency, however, are not present domestically. Within the Great Firewall, discussions about the state of the economy, or about marginalized groups whose livelihood is most affected, are becoming taboo subjects. This month, we feature another timely (and censored) video about China’s day laborers.
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30 Years as a Day Laborer in China
In Hefei's day labor market, Wang seems to be an adept hustler. He’s always at the head of the crowd promoting himself to people seeking workers. He is not shy of haggling with potential employers, even chasing cars to secure jobs. But those jobs are disappearing in the capital of central China’s Anhui province. Wang, 49, hasn’t managed to pick up any work the previous month. At one point, when told that someone else has been hired while on the way over, he promptly gets off without paying the taxi driver.
All of these interactions were captured in a video by NetEase. “Why are you filming us doing such humiliating things?” Wang says to the cameraman, wiping away tears. “This is like begging.”
Compared to the video in our last issue about Beijing’s Majiuqiao labor market, in which younger workers expressed a preference for day gigs over repetitive factory jobs, this NetEase video exposes a harsher reality for China’s aging migrant workers.
The earliest generation of workers like Wang started in the 1990s, largely responsible for China’s gleaming urban skylines. Thirty years later, many migrant workers still can’t afford to retire. China’s rural population receives a monthly pension that is typically below 300 RMB (42 USD). Migrant worker demographic surveys conducted by the Anhui Normal University (censored) show just under 25% of workers have some pensions or medical insurance. This lack of a safety net compels many to stay on the job for as long as they can.
Like the Majiuqiao story (and the survey), NetEase’s video was censored within days, underscoring how reports of working-class struggles are touching a nerve in the midst of an economic slowdown. The video reveals the stark reality of China’s failing pension systems for the rural population. After its removal, many users posted it onto their own channels until censorship caught up. The magazine Yicai published a follow-up report about rural workers in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. It was also deleted.
One comment captured the irony: “It’s been three decades since rural workers began finding work in cities, which coincides with the fastest period of urbanization and the boom of the real estate market in China. Yet, as they get old, the destiny that awaits them is lingering, still on the labor market, at the edges of the same cities they built.”
Watch the video here.
Restating Our Connection to the World: Three Chinese Photographers’ Overseas Trips in 2023
China dropped its “Zero-COVID” policy and reopened its borders in December 2022. The year since has been one of cathartic reconnection to the world, with many Chinese finally able to step out of their homes and their time in isolation. Many found solace in the simple act of just gazing at tree leaves, and this reinvigorated fascination with one’s immediate surroundings was captured with the hashtag#Citywalk, which began trending on Chinese social media.
The isolation imposed by China’s eventually singular approach to the pandemic caused a dizzying sense of disconnection to the rest of the world. While international travel is still recovering, the small group of people who did venture out did so with fresh eyes. Beijing-based photographer Jiang Leilei was amazed during his first trip to Europe by how bees (note: they are wasps), hovering over leftover food outside restaurants, were treated like flies. Sun Yibing and his wife, who left China during the lockdown days, crossed off Latin America on their bucket list by traveling through the continent for a year.
The void left by years of isolation has also created a “perception gap” of sorts. The Chinese web, for instance, has been recently filled by bizarre rumors about scams and kidnappings targeting Chinese tourists in Thailand. Its impact on Thai tourism has been so damaging that the Thai government has repeatedly tried to clarify the situation with Chinese netizens. This underscores the importance of real contact, as these unfounded narratives have the potential not only to influence Chinese people's perceptions of the world but also to shape the Chinese government’s foreign policy and relations.
By being on the ground, visual journalists and artists can bring back nuanced stories about global dynamics - much needed in informing China’s domestic discourse.
In November, Wang Ruobang re-visited Myanmar for the first time since the coup threw the country into crisis, and captured how everyday life goes on. Under the curfew, the streets of Yangon are mostly empty. In Pyin Oo Lwin, business owners shared stories of how the burgeoning telecom fraud industry was stationed in Myanmar, with battles in the country’s northern borders bringing in both fraud-enriched clientele and refugees. Despite it all, rebel groups have been gaining momentum from the military junta in recent months, offering a faint hope of freedom. “I’m hopeful, for its indescribable, hopeful future,” Wang told the Paper. Earlier this month, China mediated an immediate ceasefire between the military and an alliance of ethnic armed groups.
View The Paper’s selection of their travel photography here.
More of Wang Ruobang’s Myanmar trips here.
Who we are:
Beimeng Fu is a video journalist currently in Mexico City. She is a lover of languages and documentaries.
Ye Charlotte Ming is a journalist and visual editor covering stories about culture, history, and identity. She’s based in Berlin.
Writers: Ye Charlotte Ming, Beimeng Fu. Copy editor: Krish Raghav
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